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tripleevenfall writes "The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that Minneapolis police used automated scanning technology to log location data for over 800,000 license plates in June alone, with 4.9 million scans having taken place this year. The data includes the date, time, and location where the plate was seen. Worse, it appears this data is compiled and stored for up to a year and is disclosed to anyone who asks for it."

And nothing will come of it. The police will continue to do things exactly as they are now, and we'll continue to lose more of our privacy and civil rights every day. Oh, perhaps they'll throw us a bone by making it harder (although not impossible) to obtain their stored data, but the data will still be there. They won't give up that "valuable tool in the War Against Crime" and the courts will side with them, as they always have when this sort of thing comes up.

Start voting for politicians who will protect your rights and stop voting for just whichever idiot happens to be a member of your party.

You'll never see one as long as people keep voting for the status quo. When politicians start understanding that we're sick of this crap and that we won't put up with their poor leadership, then they'll start to change and we'll start getting better candidates. That will never happen, though.

No. People care about their own privacy plenty. It's that they are fed misdirection (don't you want law enforcement to catch pedos?) and a lack of other options (both parties for the Patriot Act, NDAA, etc).

Except for the fact that the masses aren't sick of this crap though. And they system makes it impossible for any third-party candidate to win.

Ask the average Joe why they are voting for Romney/Obama chances are it is because Obama is worse than Romney or vice versa. No one really -likes- Obama, no one really -likes- Romney. About the only politicians that people actually like are the "long shot" candidates like Ron Paul, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. Naturally, they have no shot in winning because A) The US election system is based on having a medium sized state government and a tiny federal government, a far cry from the large state governments and colossal federal government we have today B) The American people simply don't care about any real changes they just care about ZOMG ROMNEY DOESN'T SUPPORT GAY MARRAGE! MUST VOTE OBAMA!!!! And ZOMG OBAMA SUPPORTS ABORTION MUST VOTE ROMNEY!!! Rather than any intelligent debate on the real issues.

So, you're saying that if all the people that really liked, say, Jill Stein for instance, actually voted for her, she wouldn't be allowed to occupy the office? I wish people would put that to the test, because otherwise their complaints are full of shit. How is that the "system's" fault? The system is fine. The problem is operator error. PEBKAC

The system is based on an ideal America which was shattered following the civil war. The idea is that most laws affecting you and me would be passed in local and state elections where there is more impact and more ability for the common man to influence change, along with more ability to vote with your feet. The federal government would be in charge of doing "big picture things" such as tariff rates, wars and foreign affairs. Their impact on the individual would be normally very low. There was competition built in, the states would choose the senate and the masses the house, meaning that laws that threatened state sovereignty would more than likely be blocked by the senate. When it came to the laws people wanted, it could easily be decided by a state by state basis where one industry or product dominated their economy. Also, political parties were minor.

Today we don't have that, senators are directly elected by the masses, the federal government affects people a lot more than the state government does, no state has a single industry anymore, sure, there are a lot of farms in Kansas but there are also huge technology firms (Garmin and Sprint for example).

There are several improvements that the US could do, such as proportional representation by party (like what much of Europe does) to let everyone's voice be heard, especially since a lot of ideas aren't geographically based. And while I'm not sure what the political benefits would be, I would like to see something like Prime Minister's questions done with the US.

This "ideal America". It actually existed? Despite the Indian wars, slavery, The Aliens and Sedition act, whiskey (and various others) rebellion, etc.? Might be a good idea to reread your history there. It wasn't exactly peaches and cream between the states and the feds then either. All things considered, I feel better off in the here and now. Either way, the "system" cannot prevent us from electing who we wish into office, not until somebody puts a gun to our heads and tells us who to vote for.

After 9/11 the federal government offered up a TON of money to police departments for the war on terror, and to get them new equipment. Like everything else the federal government does, and generally any payer does - the money came with strings. The strings involved were that the places that took the money would lose a large chunk of local control (and in the event of an emergency -- ALL -- of their local control).

These cameras are a part of that that package, and the package which followed. They are all ov

There's something called the 14th Amendment which established a new relationship between citizen and states and citizen and Federal Government. One of the reasons that libertarians are going nowhere is because it doesn't take too long to hear the "Lincoln was a war criminal" meme, and along with several other phrases which were very popular among say, Dixiecrats, in 1972. States do not have monetary policy and their economies are not large enough to stabilize at our current level of trade. Left to their own

About the only politicians that people actually like are the "long shot" candidates like Ron Paul, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. Naturally, they have no shot in winning...

It is people constantly worried about winning or losing to the other evil that is the main problem. A third party candidate doesn't have to win to cause a victory for America. All a third party candidate has to do is show the status quo Demoplicans or Republocrats that it is the 1/3 of voters (independents) who decide elections and that they aren't speaking to those voters anymore.

The only way to get there is to make your voice heard by NOT voting for Mr. Brain Cancer (D) or Mr. Ebola (R). If it becomes clear to Mr. Cancer and Democrats that he lost an election because independent liberal minded voters went with Stein instead of him, then the party is going to do something (hopefully beyond mere rhetoric) to try to appeal to those voters. If they don't they'll never be in power again, and that's a mighty incentive.

Here's the key though: you have to be willing to take a short term loss for the long term win.

So for someone like me who is very worried about civil liberties, the worst vote I could make is to vote for Obama because all he has done is make what was radical under GWB, the new normal. If I vote for him, I give Democrats the green light to be even worse. The only way to drive Democrats back to pretending to care about civil rights, is to make it clear that liberal voters abandoned Obama. However, if I use my protest vote for Romney, it will be heard by the Democrats as a suggestion to be even more neo-con than they are currently acting. That option is as bad as voting for Obama. And of course, not voting would just lump me in with the apathetic so it would gain me nothing.

That leaves me with one rational vote: Jill Stein. She is strong on civil liberties and on the ballot. It's actually a very plain choice for anyone who thought GWB's policies were evil and doesn't think those same polices become magical and sparkly fine merely because Obama practices them. All those policies liberals hate will just get worse under Obama, but if he loses, there will, at least hopefully, be some pushback.

A conservative could come up with a similar analysis to vote Buddy Roemer or whoever (fwiw, I've heard him speak and I like him too, I just want my vote to be a clear anti-war, anti-police state vote).

I'd argue that there are plenty of voters who actually like their candidates, but the 'no one really' comment is merely an exaggeration - Obama, Bush, and Clinton weren't elected because 51% of the population thought he was the best candidate. Realistically, a statistically insignificant number of people is going to believe that their candidate is the 'most optimal choice', but a lot of people are voting for somebody they agree with barely half the time because they perceive the other guy as being even worse.

So when somebody goes to the polls and pulls the lever for Romney when they'd really prefer Ron Paul, they're voting for the 'least worst' candidate they think has a chance.

As a 'moderate libertarian', I'm the type where in preference polls I tend to hit about 40% for both candidates... Huh, this is new, in the 'selectsmart' [selectsmart.com] test I scored 52% for Obama, 39% for Romney. I'll note that in previous tests I normally agreed with Ron Paul(48%) the most. Eh, I had been leaning Obama recently anyways, in the sense that I've seen nothing that suggests Romney would 'do better'.

Given those results, I'd say that a candidate I could vote for without 'holding my nose' would have to at least be in the 70-80% range, average. I say this because Ron Paul is still hold the nose at 62%. Obama(57) clearly leads Romney(45), but not overwhelmingly.

Is that how it works? Everything has to be spoon fed? How about all of you go out and conscript somebody for office. Give him a secretary, and tell him, like it or not, he's stuck there for a four year term. It's the only way you're going to get an honest one, because you all should know by now that anybody who wants the job should probably be locked up in a padded cell... in a straightjacket.

Oh, perhaps they'll throw us a bone by making it harder (although not impossible) to obtain their stored data

We need to go the other way. If the police gather public data, then it needs to be made totally public, searchable by anyone. That way, (a) everyone's aware of exactly what data is being collected, and (b) everyone is equally subject to surveillance, whether they're police, politicians, etc.

IMO, judges see themselves as being protectors of the innocent and punishers of the wicked. This is why the gun rights crowd got hammered in United States v. Miller [wikipedia.org]; gangsters trying to get away with their crimes by appealing to the supreme court aren't exactly sympathetic defendants. By contrast, the Heller [wikipedia.org] and McDonald [wikipedia.org] decisions involved defendants carefully chosen as upstanding and law abiding citizens cruelly oppressed by government overstepping its bounds. Or to put it another way, Jack Miller was seen by the judges as an evildoer in need of their punishment whereas Dick Anthony Heller and Otis McDonald were seen by the judges as upstanding citizens in need of their protection.

In most cases and in the absence of binding precedent, IMO, judges all the way up to supreme court level will attempt to craft their decision in such a way as to produce an outcome that punishes the wicked and/or protects the innocent.

Which means the trick to getting a favorable outcome is carefully selecting who challenges the law. Let a slimebag criminal challenge the law first and we're all gonna get screwed in the rush to punish the wicked. Find someone cruelly oppressed by government drunk on its own power, on the other hand, and we've got a much better chance of a favorable outcome.

Fair enough. I did say that the chances with a sympathetic defendant are "much better" rather than say or imply that it is a slam dunk. I suppose I was less careful on the "punishing the wicked" side of things.

That's basically the argument that has carefully NOT been brought before the supreme court. By the Miller decision, one can argue that a military pattern M-4, much less it's semi-automatic variants, are MORE deserving of constitutional protection than weapons not militarily useful - such as your 10/22, black powder guns, hunting rifles, and such. As such, the NFA in most of it's entirety would be unconstitutional, much less the closing of the automatic weapon registry.

And nothing will come of it. The police will continue to do things exactly as they are now, and we'll continue to lose more of our privacy and civil rights every day.

Privacy is not the issue, really here, IMO. If you're driving down the road in a government sanctioned car, you've already told them where you live and what you're doing. The problem is fake numberplates - anyone with the same car can just copy your numberplates. Then all the governmental issues get tracked backed to you. The speeding tic

Most of the time all they probably need is a similar car (and maybe not even that, if the plate does not come back with anything flagged, what are the chances that the cop bothers to check what type of car it is supposed to be on), unless the driver is already behaving suspiciously. "There was a robbery at 12th and Main. Pull all of the license plates that were logged near there around that time."

This is why CCTV is a Good Thing. I kept getting various traffic tickets for my black BMW X5 in London, from ANPR cameras - driving in bus lanes, illegal parking (okay, that one is down to boots on ground), speed cameras and all sorts.

Eventually the police came round, and one of the first things they noticed was that CGA 78X is not in fact a black BMW X5 and is not in London - that plate is on a white Citroen CX in Glasgow. "Aha" they say, "a false number plate!" So by matching up an ANPR activation with

I don't see why having a camera shooting pictures of your state owned plate as you drive down the public street is any different than a cop standing there writing down the plate number in a book, or taking a picture of it.

Actually I do see a difference... the cheap camera being there means the cop is free to answer important calls and saves the taxpayers money.

The truth works for people and not against them.

If I may embellish on this as well:The cameras work for the innocent and against the criminals.

Good luck when the SWAT team bursts through your door, shoots your dog and holds you in handcuffs in the back of a police cruiser in full view of your neighbors for six hours or more while the cops tear your home, car and possessions to shreds. When they don't find anything it will be body cavity search time; you wont _believe_ the size of the hands on the nurse assigned to perform the search.

At the end of which, having found nothing incriminating, they'll let you go back to your home saying "hey, no harm

Yeah, I don't recall the exact amendment that makes driving a right, but I think it's in the same paragraph that gives every citizen the right to fly a jet, gives every citizen the right to date a supermodel, and the right to do brain surgery.

The USA constitution doesn't give Americans any rights. The USA constitution says you already have all those rights, plus any we didn't think to write down, and reminds the government to NOT abridge any of these rights that you already have simply because you are a human being.

Driving is not a right because the law says it is so dangerous that you need to be licensed to do it.

Actually, in Minnesota, you can be charged with a felony for giving people any warning of an upcoming speed trap. You can also be charged with one for providing information about the police' whereabouts. The first thing authority does whenever it violates your privacy is exempt itself from similar treatment. This is how you periodically hear about an off-duty police officer in plain clothes getting into a fight with someone -- even if they were the aggressor, and even if they fail to identify themselves as a police officer, the other person still goes to jail for many years for striking an officer. Or that case of how a man accidentally bumped into the President in a crowd, while waiting to shake his hand, and was then carried away by the Secret Service and held without a trial for several months because he "made a physical threat against the President."

Government agents can abuse whomever they want, whenever they want, for as long as they want. And you will take it, Citizen, or things will get even worse for you... as well as your family and friends.

"Flashing lights are prohibited, except on an authorized emergency vehicle, school bus, bicycle as provided in section 169.222, subdivision 6, road maintenance equipment, tow truck or towing vehicle, service vehicle, farm tractor, self-propelled farm equipment, rural mail carrier vehicle, funeral home vehicle, or on any vehicle as a means of indicating a right or left turn, or the presence of a vehicular traffic hazard requiring unusual care in approaching, overtaking, or passing.

Just because there are possible legitimate uses for the police to deploy such technologies doesn't mean the benefits outweigh the clear privacy violations. Do you also really believe that all the PATRIOT act does is protect us from terrorists?

Right, and we also should do ID checks every 3 blocks, after all, it would allow to search for...

Actually, that's totally legal, as long as they stop everyone passing the checkpoint.

Just because there are possible legitimate uses for the police to deploy such technologies doesn't mean the benefits outweigh the clear privacy violations.

Er, you're going to deny the benefits of the technology because of a logistical/administrative issue? The privacy violations are only because this data is available publicly, something required by federal law. That's one of the reasons why our crime rate is so high to begin with: Once you're convicted, that conviction becomes public record and can be used forevermore in employment decisions. Which for all intents and purpos

Do I wish to deny the use of technology to amoral thugs who routinely abuse their power? Absolutely! Giving more power to the police has never worked out well, not for the US, not for any other country. Given their abysmal track record for protecting civil liberties why would I want to give them another tool to oppress people? Given their lax attitude towards real crime (ever report something stolen to the police?) and their attitude towards victimless "crimes" (they'll knock down doors and come in with rio

Every technology has both legitimate and illegitimate uses. The law should anticipate illegitimate use and prescribe penalties, rather than wait until the town square is full of angry citizens with pitchforks and torches, and then call them 'subversives' and 'terrorists' and have them water cannoned and shock grendade'd into a bloody pulp while yelling "Terrorists!" Responsible law makers take the social contract of "protect and serve" seriously... which is exactly why there are no responsible law makers a

In some places, like Texas, probable cause isnt really needed if they want to search your persons.
There are many loopholes in the law that leave the decision to "arrest" a suspect of seemingly trivial, non-violent offenses (such as jaywalking, or running a stop sign) up to the officer. Purportedly for safety, the officer may search your persons/property and of course hope you didn't have something incriminating on you.
(Tip: don't hold on to your friend's "electronic cigarette" for him)

And perhaps it should be illegal for a government to use technologies that automatically record all license plates. It's an order of magnitude different from someone simply sitting around and recording them by hand.

Why is it 'worse' because it is 'more?'

Would that also apply to free speech? "Well, one radical blogger on the internet is OK, but 10 radical bloggers on the internet should be illegal because it's an order of magnitude more."

It seems to me like these cameras would help exonerate 10 times the innocent, and catch 10 times the criminals. I don't see that as worse.

Step 1 : Request data on every member of the City Council (or whatever the local government equivalent is).Step 2 : Find out who's "daily routine" includes frequent trips to a local strip club, and who is spending the night at locations not their home.Step 3 : Publish anonymously in wikileaks.Step 4 : Watch this policy change amazingly fast.

Step 5: Forget that FOIA requests have your name on it.
Step 6: Go to jail for a long time for... *shakes magic 8 ball* terroristic threats.

Minneapolis city counsel members were amongst the first to draft anti-occupy legislation to evict people from the public squares, in secret and without notice. They then posted signage saying that the area would be closed for 'maintenance'. A few hours later... they rolled in with the big police vans and arrested everyone in sight. Before that they ran water pressure s

So, when people get stopped by the police for taking pictures in public, everyone rages against the police. When the police take pictures in public, everyone rages against the police.

YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. Either it's okay to take these pictures and do what you like with them, or it's not. Stop looking at everything the police do as bad and evil and inherently abusive, and treat all instances of an issue the same.

Sure you can. The police are public officers working a job for which they are empowered with the ability to detain and arrest. The public are exercising their rights to move freely and with relative anonymity through their own state.

These are drastically different scenarios and it's perfectly reasonable to allow constant surveillance of one (where the people have been entrusted with abusable rights) and not the other.

Yup, you have a right to move about without being constantly monitored. It only rarely comes up. A few years back a judge ordered someone to stop recording the license plates of every car that came into a polling station to vote. The same injunction is made on occasion again people trying to record the plates of every car visiting a given adult video store. Unfortunately the right isn't codified into law, but it's based on judicial precedent. Of course you don't have the right to total anonymity as the

While you were replying to me in general agreement, note that I don't actually believe much in inalienable rights. The problem is that they are entirely impractical. You might claim that a person has the right to free speech, sure, but do they have the right to live? Probably - what's the point of speech if you're dead.

But to live, I continue, you need breathable air. So is the right to breathable air inalienable? What air is yours then, exactly? Just the air in your lungs? How useful is that since t

So, when people get stopped by the police for taking pictures in public, everyone rages against the police. When the police take pictures in public, everyone rages against the police.

YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. Either it's okay to take these pictures and do what you like with them, or it's not. Stop looking at everything the police do as bad and evil and inherently abusive, and treat all instances of an issue the same.

ORLY?

Just try setting up surveillance of a police station and log/publish license plate data on comings and goings.

Helpful Tip: Make sure you've made prior arrangements for legal counsel and for posting bail.

I could see an interesting crowd sourcing project though of a name to a plate. If the camera hardware was cheap enough for an outdoor system and easy to use software to spit out a plate I wouldn't be surprised if people around the country would use it. Any neighborhood watch would love it. I'm not a hardware guy but an external camera and easy software that would work is probably still too pricey to make this doable. Perhaps a hardware guru could chime in.

While I think it's a shit policy and would prefer that they don't do it, I do have to say I do like the fact that it is open to anyone. To me, if law enforcement is gathering this type of information, it should be available to anyone. That way, we can keep track of the police and politicians as well as they keep track of us. The same things goes for public "safety" cameras. While I would prefer to not have any, if they are going to do them, they should be open to anyone to be able to watch.

This system is police state BS, straight up. This is the same faux-balance that we see with the 'Super Congress' - a few dollars in defense cuts to match cuts to health care. But in the first case, a defense contractor might have to make do with a Mercedes instead of a Bentley. But in the latter, people will die from lack of health care.

You are out in public running around. They have access to both public and private data ( license plate matching ) and tech is now pretty cheap to do this and once setup it for the most part is self-mining.

Unless they should be. I live a few blocks from a police station in Minneapolis. So I am sure they have seen me driving around before. Though I am pretty sure they are not out to get me. A few years ago during a bad snowstorm a police officer knocked on my door. My elderly neighbor, bless his heart, called the police to say that he had not noticed my car move in several days. I take the bus to work so this is fairly normal. The nice officer apparently checked out my garage, walked around the house to ensure

And since they're phasing out the old passes and pushing the convenient web account enabled smart passes that you can charge with your credit card from home, you better pay cash if you don't want your bus route tagged.

Although, I have to say this is more true for the Americas and Europe than the rest of the world. A good chunk of the police in what the west are fond of calling the "third world" actually have morals and want to help people.

Says someone who has most likely never actually looked outside of the US or Europe. There are plenty of places that are quite safe despite having very little or no police presence. You look at the biggest causes of violence in the world and the answer is simple: the state. Look at the drug cartels, do you really think that drug cartels would exist if the drugs they were selling were legal? Of course not. Nearly all organized crime exists because of the state prohibiting the sale of goods where there is an inelastic demand.

It is perfectly possible to have harmony and peace without having a police state.

There are plenty of places that are quite safe despite having very little or no police presence.

Where?

Seriously. I'm retired and deeply troubled by the notion that I no longer respect but merely fear the police in my country. I might be willing to relocate. Give me a short list and I'll do some research.

A lot of the island nations in the Caribbean are generally (mostly) laid back and have less of a police presence, I've heard people having good luck with Argentina and oddly enough Mexico, haven't been outside of the tourist-y areas there enough to tell you exactly how they are. If you can, I'd talk to people who have moved/lived in those countries if possible because it tells you a good deal more than the official crime statistics (for example, was the person killed in a random drive by killing or cheated

Yep, you might also want to check out Chile too. Both are very modern and generally well prepared for disasters, economic, natural or man-made. Economic collapses are nothing new in Argentina and so the people largely have a culture based around that and so they are better prepared if/when another one hits.

So what do you propose to do Mr. AC? What's really funny is we look at the people who escaped tyranny abroad to come to the US with nothing but a dream and the shirt on their back to have more opportunities as heroes, but yet a few generations later when the tyranny is domestic suddenly its cowardly?

Tell me, how are you going to fight injustice? Lets just start with one piece of injustice, the US PATRIOT act, tell me, how do you, as a single person, expect to get that to be repealed? Its not like everyo

Somalia has a fairly minimal police force but, "Pervasive and violent crime is an extension of the general state of insecurity in Somalia. Serious, brutal, and often fatal crimes are very common. Kidnapping and robbery are a particular problem in Mogadishu and other areas of the south." (USDOS)

Why don't you move there, and then report back to us on the, "...harmony and peace..."

Sure, its a problem with bad laws. Now, do you expect me to have respect for someone who knows there are bad laws out there and yet tries to uphold them? This isn't a 1950s TV show, anyone who joins any sort of police force knows exactly what corrupt laws are in place and undoubtedly knows the corruption rampant in "law enforcement" and yet they still choose that as their career path. Why would I have respect for someone who does that? Why would I have respect for an organization who as a whole ignores real